Just Before Falling
by muppet47
Summary: That laughter, the feeling of really, truly belonging, was her last clear impression of the evening. And then she ruined everything.


**Title: **Just Before Falling

**Author:** Muppet

**Pairing/Character:** Kara, L/K, Zak

**Rating:** T, for adult themes and situations.

**Spoilers:** Daybreak

**Summary:** That laughter, the feeling of really, truly belonging, was her last clear impression of the evening. And then she ruined everything.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing.

**Author's notes:** There is a list of things that bothered me about the finale, but nothing as much as the Lee/Kara near frak on the table with Zak right across the room. On the night they met. No. Just no.

So this short piece is me basically trying to – not make sense of it exactly, but to work through what could have happened, I guess.

**Updated Author's notes**: I wrote this about a year ago and originally posted it on LJ. Any reviews are very appreciated.:)

* * *

**Just Before Falling**

_She's burning up. The storm is all around her, drawing her in, blinding her. The only senses left to rely on are her hand on the throttle and the voice in her ear, but the voice is growing more distance, flickering in and out like a radio fixed to a bad frequency. _

_The force is overwhelming._

_She can feel herself descending faster and faster, closer to the edge every second and she doesn't think she can hold it up anymore. Her shoulders are aching and the heat all around her is unbearable and she is filled with dread, because she knows she is going to give in, give up._

_She can feel herself backing off the throttle, letting go, even as the voice grows louder, more frantic, screaming words she can't make out but somehow understands have a terrible importance to her, but it's too late to pull back up. She's lost control, is falling._

Kara jerked awake and cried out, the sudden movement setting off a fiery explosion of stars behind her eyes and causing her to flip off the couch. She landed on her back with a muffled grunt and woke up Zak, who abruptly sat up.

"What? What is it?" He sat, eyes wide and startled, for about half a second until the bright morning light hit him full in the face. "Frak!" Zak groaned and flopped back into the sofa cushions.

"Oh, gods," he was clutching his head, covering his eyes. "What the frak?"

Kara stared up from under the coffee table, not really hearing him. The crackling noise was still in her ears, the swoop of the fall in her stomach. Unbalanced. Flailing. The sensations of the dream remained, even as the details escaped her. As always afterwards, she had to struggle to wake up, her body still heavy, her head vague. She'd had this dream on and off her whole life it seemed, and yet she could never remember it. Could never have described it to anyone, not even herself.

Zak moaned again, still protecting his eyes from the obscenely bright morning light streaming across the floor. "What did we drink last night?" He paused. "I think I'm dying. I'm not kidding."

"You're not dying," Kara closed her own eyes, trying to will away the headache that threatened at her temples and the back of her neck. Tried to ignore the tendrils of dread working through her body. The dream always unsettled her. This was nothing unusual, even if it had been a while – years? – since she'd last had it.

Kara took deep breaths and tried not to think about why the dream had come back now. Didn't think about the stories of gods who got jealous when mortals were too happy. She just concentrated on breathing.

"No, I'm definitely going to die. I _want_ to die, holy frak"

"Get some water." Kara muttered, her eyes still closed. Still breathing. The dream was receding but the headache and the dread remained, both growing stronger.

Zak let out another moan, "No way. I can't move that far."

Kara opened her eyes as little as possible and looked up at him, still gripped by unease. Something wasn't right. Now that her mind was free of the dream, details from the night before were filtering back in, accompanied by a horrible nausea that had nothing to do with her hangover.

Zak opened one eye half a slit and frowned. "Why am I on the couch?"

There was something awful she wasn't _quite_ remembering.

Turned his head to the side and squinted at her, trying to focus. "Why are you on the floor?"

It was right there, on the edge of her memory. She almost had it…

"Hey," Zak lifted his head about two inches, all he could manage, and glanced around the room, his face adorably confused. "Where's Lee?"

* * *

Kara sat cross-legged in front of the toilet, her head resting on the seat, sickness and the chill from the tile making her shiver. She'd been sick twice and wasn't sure if it was over yet. Her wrist throbbed where she had smacked it on the coffee table when she had leapt up without a word and left Zak staring after her as she sprinted for the bathroom, barely making it. Gods.

Lee Adama.

This was just…there were no words. No words to even start to form a thought process about offering to frak your boyfriend's brother on the dinning room table. Kara pressed her forehead against the plastic seat, the coolness easing her headache some. She immediately yanked it upright, some part of her thinking she didn't deserve even that much comfort.

Kara could feel the nausea trying to rise up her throat again. Carefully putting her head back on the seat, she breathed through her mouth and tried to calm down, tried to remember exactly what had happened. It couldn't be as bad as she was remembering it. It just couldn't. Not even she was that frakked up. She hoped, anyway.

Everything was pretty clear up to and immediately after Zak passed out. Zak always was a light weight – she had been kind of surprised that Lee was still hanging in there, having assumed that the lack of tolerance was a family trait, but apparently not. Maybe. Or maybe Lee just hadn't had that much to drink at that point. She hadn't really been paying attention.

Except that was a total lie. Lee had had exactly as much to drink as she had – she had made a point of refilling his wine glass whenever she refilled her own. She had no idea how much Zak had had to drink. She hadn't been paying attention to Zak.

Honestly - her stomach threatened to heave again - it had honestly started innocently. She was nervous, knew that Zak wanted her to like his brother, wanted him to like her. There had been that weird moment at the door when Lee had looked at her…and her stomach had dropped pleasantly as her breath caught in her throat, and for one second she'd had that feeling you get when you unexpectedly see someone you've been missing for a long time.

And then the smile fell from his face as his eyes collided with hers, and suddenly something deep inside her unknotted. Her shoulders relaxed and her breath left her body and for that moment she was filled with something that was like nothing so much as …relief.

Which was ridiculous. She'd never seen Lee before last night. It was just because he was Zak's brother that he seemed familiar. Although he actually wasn't much like Zak. Zak was so laid back, at home anywhere with anyone. And Lee…

At first - after the weirdness at the door – he was so stiff, uncomfortable, and Kara almost couldn't bear it. Zak had so wanted the night to be fun, and Kara was sure she could make Lee smile, relax. So she had teased, made sure he had enough to drink, got him talking. He got so passionate discussing things he believed in, even as he denied that he had any such beliefs. A cynical dreamer. An idealist in denial.

She had been intrigued, and almost giddy with the realization that they were really getting along. She had been so nervous. Zak had talked of nothing but this night and Lee for a week. He may have teased about his brother being too strait-laced to be any real fun, but it was obvious he adored him. He wanted his brother to approve of his girlfriend, and familial approval had never been high on Kara's list of accomplishments. Her own family didn't approve of her.

But she'd worried for nothing. They found one surprising thing after another in common, again and again, until – four hours and as many bottles of wine later - it stopped being a surprise at all. Success.

Zak must have thought so too, because it was around that time that he called it a night by passing out face first on the table. She and Lee didn't notice at first, and when they did they looked from Zak to each other, and without words burst into mutual, hysterical laughter.

That laughter, the feeling of really, truly belonging, was her last clear impression of the evening. And then she had ruined everything.

Oh Gods. Kara groaned and slumped back against the bathroom wall, assaulted by a sudden memory. She had actually teased him about being a girl-friend stealer. She had come on way too strong, she could see that now. She always did. And that was hours before she had blatantly propositioned him.

Gods, _why?_ Why would she do such a thing, even as a joke? Was it a joke? A dare? What could she possibly have been thinking? What was _Lee_ thinking?

She swallowed convulsively as she considered what Lee must think of her now. Now they could never be friends. The thought gave a her an odd, hollow feeling in the middle of her chest.

Kara rubbed her eyes and tried to concentrate through the knives in her head. To align the swirling fragments of memory into something that made sense.

_Carrying Zak to the couch, Lee's hand burning her skin where it grazes her arm behind his brother's back._

_Her hands on his shoulders, close enough to see his dilated pupils and the clear blue of his irises, so unlike Zak's. _

_Shot after shot after shot. The truth is the dare._

_Telling him something secret, secret, those blue eyes inches from her own, somehow looking into her soul like he wanted to know everything about her and at the same time making her feel like he already did._

_Unbalanced, about to fall, yet safer than she has ever been. Safe enough to make hilariously unacceptable propositions. But the world is upside down and the unacceptable is possible and it's just a stupid dare. Until it isn't._

_The tinkling crash of breaking glass. Reclining on her elbows, her heart in her throat. The heavy, warm weight of him poised above her, his eyes mirroring her shock and dismay. Disbelief._

Kara jerked forward and gagged violently into the toilet, losing whatever remained in her stomach. But still she dry heaved until it seemed her body would split apart and her stomach was going to actually turn inside out and the tears were streaming down her cheeks.

_His hand enfolding hers. Trying to meet his eyes. Trying to look away. Their goodbye filled with unspeakable regret, but for what had happened or what had not, she did not know._

When it was over Kara lay on her side, her cheek against the cold tile, crying with pain and humiliation and because she knew she really was as frakked up as her mother always said.


End file.
